My husband was diagnosed with ADHD at 40. Medication has been life changing. Congratulations! I hope it helps to bring you some peace.

Welcome to the club!

I too was diagnosed as an adult—age 38. It also came as a shock, a huge shock, even as at the same time it made So Much Sense. It’s been one heck of a ride.

“Driven to Distraction” by Ned Hallowell was the first thing that made me feel seen—and not just in a negative way—after my diagnosis. He has a podcast too, and lots of other works. Love him.

Dani Donovan’s ADHD comics on twitter are also really lovely. Easy to send to my spouse and say “yo, my brain does this thing she describes here.”

(For recommending the miracle blanket years and years ago, I feel the least I can do is offer resources that helped me in this particular new and trying time.)

Ummm . . . I think I need to talk to my doctor about this. Cause this sounds a lot like me. Thank you for sharing.

Well I am SO glad that your therapist piped up! And so glad you have new insight. xox.

I was initially diagnosed with ADHD in high school and then just kind of...ignored it? Got used to it? I don't know. It came roaring back in full force a few years ago in the form of ambient noise induced panic attacks. All of the sudden, I hit 40 and my brain stopped being able to sort and filter various sounds, conversations and music around me and started trying to process it all at once and it was a Very Awful Thing. I talked to my doctor and she was all "umm...Adult ADHD?" and I started taking Wellbutrin for it and it was amazing. I'm glad something has clicked. I know the relief you're feeling all too well.

I was diagnosed two years ago, when my kids started showing signs and I started reading up on it and learned about executive function, and why it’s so much easier to lie on the couch and hate myself than get up and do the dreaded task that my mind has spun into a GIANT MASSIVE THING. Ritalin not only changed my life, it changed my self perception. Like before Ritalin I just thought I was “like that.” You know, a hilarious flake of a hot mess who talks so fast people get scared and back away, all the while I’m internally screaming to shut up. The self loathing was real and heavily internalized to the point I added Klonapin and Trintellix to deal with a lifetime of hearing I was a fuck up both from my family and friends and inside of my head. It’s been quite a journey of forgiveness for myself. I just want to go back to high school and hug that strung out jittery motormouth who WANTS to be good at everything but hasn’t the first idea how to break term papers into steps and is consequently sobbing at four am the day it’s due . IT WASNT HER FAULT.

I tried on the idea of ADHD sporadically over a period of a few years, but kept coming back to the easier conclusion that I was lazy/broken/rude etc. What finally flipped the script for me was a retired physician in the neighborhood -- she had just been diagnosed, at age 72. She was incredibly hard-working and successful in her career, and had been able to keep things together on one level or another her entire life, until menopause (which tends to make situations worse). That is what led me to research and find the description of girls with ADHD and the Sari Solden book, in which she explicitly talks about how women often make it through high school and maybe college, if they have strong supports and scaffolding. And that it's when we hit all the demands of managing adulthood -- and especially household management -- that it begins to fall apart.

I have adult ADHD also but then got divorced so I didn’t have insurance for 6 years and those meds are waaaay too expensive to pay for out of pocket.
Anyhow, meds. Please, please be careful with them. Please. I know Vyvanse is supposed to be safer, with less potential for abuse, but that doesn’t mean abuse-proof. My current husband was diagnosed with ADHD several years ago. Started out fine with just Vyvanse, but then started taking double doses because he liked being able to focus and get things done. Kept getting the dosage increased, then got Adderall as an afternoon “booster”. His current prescriptions are 70 mg Vyvanse and 20 mg Adderall IR. (Two different psychiatrists have allowed this shit.) The 30 day supply for both RX is gone in less than 3 weeks, sometimes in as little as 10 days. It’s like being married to someone with bipolar disorder. Mania when he first refills, then irritability from not sleeping for days, then deep depression and crashing when he runs out again. It’s fucking hell.
I didn’t mean to be a buzz kill, I just wanted to caution against any potential desire to “take another dose, just this once, so I can get XYZ done.”

Hyperfocus! I haz that, to a disgusting degree. As a kid, I would sit curled up on the couch, reading a book, while the rest of the 11 people in my childhood home made a lot of noise and chaos. It is why I didn't think I possibly had ADHD.

When my son was diagnosed in 2001, his behavioral pediatrician looked at his Connor's scales, then at me and my husband and said "one of you absolutely has severe ADHD," and he and my husband looked at me. I responded "a good manager has to be able to do 15 things at once!" Yep, severe ADHD. I returned to college in 2009 and used a lot of that hyperfocusing to get my work done. It got harder to do, but I was able to manage my master's program.

I waved the white flag the second semester of my doctoral program and I've been medicated ever since. Strattera has been amazing for my sleep more than my focus. (ADHD and insomnia are common co-diagnoses). Adderrall was better for my focus, but not my sleep, which is why I'm on both. Thanks to some health diagnoses and a new boss who is fond of telling me she'll fire me multiple times a week, I've added Xanax to the mix.

Currently, I'm on medical leave for work, and the lack of routine is horrible for ADHD. I need something to remind me of doctors appointments, but am loathe to get a smart watch because it would be far too distracting (similar to you putting your phone away), and am wondering if I can use a fitbit with alarms to remind me of appointments.

I've found planners (now a traveler's notebook with multiple bullet journals for each specific topic) are a HUGE help for my ADHD issues. Recently, I added a command center at home to keep track of three people's work schedules. If you don't have something like this, when your ADHD sons start working, I encourage something visual like this, assigning each person their own color. This way, they realize that Mom has to drive Ike to this thing at 3pm, so I need to wait for her to pick me up - things like that.

Omg, Amy. I will be showing this to my husband. He was diagnosed at 18. But at the time the only options were stimulant meds which made him feel bad, so he muddled through. All the way through college and grad school. Then his mom died and in the last 14 years since we’ve been doing the depression/anxiety dance, and the whole time I’m on the sidelines going “What about the ADHD? That’s definitely setting off some problems depression wise, and it’s probably part of the anxiety.” And now he’s on something that helps but not as much as he’d like and he really needs a doc who isn’t a resident... Anyway, I’ll send this to him and hope it helps him to keep trying. It’s sinister how depression hangs around with anxiety and ADHD. I remind him of that. And that my migraines pal around with my fibro, but that means we have to keep our eyes on several balls at once.

Oh. Just. Oh.
High functioning female executive...who scores almost entirely in the grey of part A...mostly off to the right.
ADHD runs in the family...but me too? Never even occurred to me...but this last year has been TOUGH and your post resonates.
Oh.

Wow! I’m so glad your therapist mentioned ADHD to you!
I was diagnosed as an adult as well and ONLY because I mentioned it to my doctor when I noticed my mental health deteriorating.
When he asked why I hadn’t brought it up YEARS ago, my bewildered answer was, “What could you have done?”
“Offered you some medication and counselling options BEFORE you got to this point?” Impressively, he managed to NOT roll his eyes at me while saying this.

I now realize the anxiety, depression & PTSD from some early childhood trauma all stem from my brain being wired a little differently. Which helps to make the most effective battle plan possible!

Vyvanse has been a huge help for me too and I’ve already ordered the Sari Solden book, thanks to the above comments!

On Twitter, there is a brilliant woman Erynn Brook (@erynnbrook ) and her threads about ADHD have opened my eyes like no one else.

I have a son the same age as Noah and have been following you since he was just a toddler. I’ve noticed so many similarities between our lives (my husband’s name is Jason too!!!) and do it somehow makes sense that we’d have this in common as well. (You are waaaay cooler, however!)

All this to say: I see you, I get it & I’m rooting for you! Along with everybody else and these comments, we’ve got your back, you can do this. Way to go!

This is me. But when I mentioned to my NP that I wanted to be evaluated, the person in that office doing the evaluations gave me the children's rating scale. So since I don't pick fights with people, etc. I wasn't diagnosed. The NP was still willing for me to try ADHD meds, but I would have to wean off the depression medication first, and that was too scary, especially in the dark of winter. I may need to revisit.

I was diagnosed 2 years ago at age 50 and when the doctor told me I started crying. She was so concerned and immediately tried to reassure me by saying "Don't worry, we can find a way to treat this!". I told her that I wasn't upset that I had ADD, I was crying because I was so relieved that I wasn't going crazy.

Shit. I think this might be me. I literally just emailed my doctor. Thanks, Amy.

Soooo.... I think I need to talk to my doctor? Because a lot of these symptoms sound a lot like me? I.... am flabbergasted. And really curious to find out if I'm just lazy (as my mom always said, because I could NEVER! START! A! THING!), or if there is actually something going on here.... Thank you for opening my eyes!! :o

Feeling all the feels of gratitude for your sharing and your honesty and your life. And also was reading this thinking -- it's bad to really enjoy a post this long and thoughtful about such a complicated subject, isn't it? But ... then you ended like you did, and I thought ... this does remind me of the 'old days.' I'm so glad you are here to figure all of this out!! You are a model for me.

My uncle had ADHD, but when I came to numbers, he was hyper focused. He never was diagnosed, but we all knew. He was a very successful business man and accountant. However, if it was something he wasn't interested in, it didn't get done. He had 2 daughters who were diagnosed ADD and could not function or hold a job. One medicates. The other did until she got pregnant. She knew she need to get back on meds, but never got around to making an appointment. She and her 17 yr old daughter, died last summer from a small plane crash (with her pilot mom and 13 yr old son). She never got around to making an appointment for almost 18 years.

I've scheduled an appointment with my doctor for tomorrow at 3:30. Thank you, Amy. <3

ADD/ADHD is something I want to discuss with my doctor. I just in the last 6 months or so started meds for anxiety (zoloft) and while I feel somewhat calmer, less short with my boys, and not having full on crying fits everyday, I still feel like my brain is a rabbit running back and forth in a cage when I am trying to get anything accomplished.